Someone needs to find a way for a bunch of bananas to ripen one by one, instead of the whole damn lot ripening at the same time and causing me to panic-eat bananas. I know you can freeze them and make instant 1-ingredient-banana-ice-cream*, but let’s be honest here. No one ever remembers that they have frozen bananas in their freezer. I found some in the bottom of my freezer dating back to when Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were together.

The other day I made the terrible mistake of telling some very juvenile-minded people that I wanted clams. “I’m craving the taste of clams!” I said. “What? I love eating clams. Especially big meaty saucy clams that you eat with your fingers and you get the juices all over your face… Will you guys stop looking at me like that.” For the rest of the day they kept giving me sly looks. This brought me to the conclusion that one should be very careful about mentioning clams to certain people.

If there’s something you cannot trust besides the department of meteorology and Tinder profile pictures, it’s the baking aisle of the supermarket. Those boxed cake mixes will lure you in with their siren song about the most amazing chocolate fudge cake of your dreams. It will only cost you $4 and cup of oil and an egg. AND YOUR SOUL.

For our thirtieth birthdays – er, not very long ago, maybe it was even last year – my bestie Mary and I decided to go to New York. The trip was unequivocally centred around two things: shopping and eating cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. We shopped every single day, and it’s safe to say that we are the worst/best shopping influence on each other – YOU HAVETO BUY THAT - culminating in the performance of our lives by shopping for 12 hours straight in an outlet store heaven. Halfway through we stopped for 5 minutes to toss back a cheeseburger each in the same way that marathon runners grab bottles of electrolyte water in the middle of a run. So epic was this shopping event that we both felt nauseous afterwards, mine further compounded by the Commonwealth Bank calling me to see if my credit card had been stolen by some criminal with a penchant for Fendi and Michael Kors.

For the first time ever, I was defeated by a cake. Not in the making, but in the eating. You might wonder how this could be possible, given that I’m a well-trained cake-eating machine. But I literally had to wipe the sweat off my brow and put the fork down after only 2 bites of a mere sliver. Then I stared at the rest of this enormous glossy cake before me, looking so huge and never-ending that I’m sure it actually disappeared into the horizon.

Isn’t it annoying when someone casually tells you that they “just threw together” an elaborate 5 tiered multi-flavoured cake? Even though I’ve done enough baking for people to think that I’m whipping up desserts with ease, the process still feels like I’m dismantling a live bomb. All that business about careful measuring and adding eggs one at a time and compulsory folding of batter clockwise and WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T OVER MIX and pulling the cake out of the oven at exactly the right second gives me the sweats. I even have a timer with big flashing digital numbers counting down to add to the drama. I completely understand why people just end up buying a cake from Coles. Okay maybe not from Coles. But what kind of childhood did you have if you never had a dirty $5 Coles chocolate mud cake for your 8th birthday?

This delicious recipe for tiramisu is a family recipe, which is true enough because my mum gave it to me. Now it shouldn’t matter that my mum definitely isn’t italian. She’s Vietnamese. However I don’t think her being in possession of a kick-ass tiramisu recipe is a completely weird thing because many of her vietnamese recipes are heavily french influenced, and Italy is right next to France, so….you know what I mean? However I’m quite certain that she never grew up on mascarpone cheese. Or any cheese. Sad face.

These are the most seductive brownies I’ve ever had, and without sounding like a total brownie whore, I’ve had a hell of a lot of brownies. Besides the chocolate, they’re full of the world’s unsexiest ingredient, prunes. All the marketing for prunes seems to be related entirely to its uses as a laxative, but try not to think about that now. Taste these brownies and you’ll realise that those glossy misshapen globules magically create pockets of gooey texture and lend a deliciously rich yet subtle fruity sweetness to this deeply chocolately brownie. Sorry I didn’t mean to go all Nigella on you in that last sentence there.

I’m pretty sure everyone loves mac and cheese. Everyone. I’m not nearly as certain that everyone loves truffles, being one of those things that you love or hate or maybe never had before because truffles are the most expensive food in the world and instead of eating truffles you had to pay rent or something boring like that.

You might wonder why I would even go near a recipe like this when I have already perfected an actual cheesecake, made of everything a vegan would run away from ie. all the dairy eggy refined-sugary goodness that makes life worth living. Yeah I don’t know either. Nonetheless, I decided to give it a shot to see if it was possible to make a dessert with all the vegan/raw constraints but also lived up to my impeccably high standards of deliciousness.

Is there anything more awkward than celebrating your birthday at work? You’re ushered into the boardroom in front of a huge candle-lit cake and your whole office sings the worst rendition of happy birthday that you’ve ever heard in your life. And then there’s the HR-approved discussion skirting around how old you are now (unless you’re my politically incorrect boss, who will wonder out loud why you don’t have a boyfriend/ girlfriend/ fiancé/ husband/ wife/ baby/ mistress). I’ve also observed during my working career that the accounts department always mimes the singing but they eat the most cake.

This is where I’m meant to write a flowery description about it being summer and craving something lighter and watermelon is the perfect refreshing thing to serve during this weather etc. etc. but the truth is that watermelon is the shit and I will eat it no matter what season it is. Never limit yourselves, people.

Have you ever tried to transport a delicate home-made cake by plane from Sydney to Melbourne? It’s a pain in the ass and filled with many moments of terror, such as when the airport guy suddenly decides to turn your cake box sideways as it goes through the x-ray machine. It was much easier in the old days when I’d just buy 2 dozen virtually indestructible Krispy Kreme donuts to take to Melbourne (back when only Sydney had Krispy Kremes). Although I haven’t had one in years, I could really go for some original glazed Krispy Kremes right now. Damn me and my food memories.

I wish I were more mature than to snigger at the word pound, but unfortunately I am not. Sorry. While we’re here, I also confess to laughing at pictures of suggestive looking vegetables on the internet and could barely contain myself when I recently passed by the Batter Fluffy Flaps pancake shop in Singapore.

I love how food inspiration appears from all kinds of wondrous places. Mostly from the obvious food magazines, baking websites and tv chefs, but sometimes it’s from random people waiting behind me in the checkout at supermarkets who give me unsolicited advice on cooking asparagus or baking sponge cakes. Does this happen to everyone or just me? This recipe I found glued inside a cake tin at Coles. It sounded so delicious that I ended up buying the cake tin especially for the recipe. I could have just taken a picture of the recipe and saved myself 15 bucks. Idiot.

I’d love to be the kind of person that enjoys going for a run, but my running style looks like that weird fake joggy-run that people do when a car is waiting for them to cross the street. I prefer incidental exercise ie. the exercise that happens accidentally because I’m carrying too many shopping bags while walking up the hill to my house. I also work up a sweat every day when I’m frantically searching for something to wear from my wardrobe but that probably doesn’t count as exercise. This is rather annoying because otherwise I’d be really fit.

We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here in Australia, but I cannot wait for Thanksgiving to be over already. All of my favourite recipe websites are giving me too much pumpkin. Pumpkin pie. Pumpkin cake. Pumpkin mousse. Pumpkin cheesecake. Pumpkin cookies. Pumpkin spice lattes. Congratulations America on successfully holiday-theming a vegetable. It makes me extremely nervous because Christmas is coming next and that means an onslaught of peppermint-flavoured everything. Whoever decided that Christmas should taste of peppermint is an asshole because obviously only toothpaste and chewing gum should taste like peppermint. And certainly not actual food that you swallow.

No one really likes to think about liver and where it comes from or what it does. And much like politics or Scientology or Kim Kardashian, people have a fairly strong opinion of it one way or the other. However, when transformed into a smooth parfait (in case you didn’t know, a pâté is a more coarse, textured version), you don’t even think about the fact that it’s made of liver. You just wish it weren’t a shared entree and you hope no one will notice if you eat the entire thing.

There are two things that scare me. The first is clowns because they’re fucking creepy, especially when one tries to hit on you and then follows you around and you can see the psycho lurking in your peripheral vision everywhere you go. The second thing is over-baking cakes. Once you’ve over-baked a cake, you’re kind of screwed. The worst is when you have no choice but to serve it up and pretend your cake was meant to have the taste and texture of styrofoam. Everyone eats in awkward silence and all you can hear is the chinking of cake forks on plates and you can see the effort of their chewing and forcing themselves to swallow, like….uh…well I guess it’s similar to when you’re forcing yourself to swallow anything. And the reason for silence is because they literally can’t speak due to the lumps of dry cake stuck in their throats. Sometimes not even a thick layer of frosting or ice-cream can save it. The worst, I tell you. Even worse than stalker clowns.

You may recall that I have already blogged about these in Version 1.0 of my blog and discussed their amazing qualities in great detail. If you are seeing these for the first time, they are the best thing to come from a marriage of Rice Bubbles and Ovaltine. And for those of you who do not have a relationship with your oven, you’ll love these because they don’t require any baking at all. But please tell me you are at least capable of mixing stuff together.

HOT CREAM SAUCE. Why has no one ever told me about Hot Cream Sauce? And can I mention Hot Cream Sauce one more time in this paragraph for extra emphasis? Of course I can, this is my food blog. Hot Cream Sauce.

I am that weirdo you see at the greengrocer just standing there with a mango held right up to my face, sometimes two mangoes. There’s something about a big pile of mangoes that makes me want to touch them and smell them and have my evil way with them. And by this I mean eat them. I just want to be clear on this in case you think I have some kind of kinky mango fetish.

Chicken wings are the unloved and unwanted part of a KFC bucket, joining green Skittles, Orange Cream biscuits, Miranda from Sex and the City, and Michelle Williams from Destiny’s Child as voted Least Favourite in their respective groups.

There are many things in life that I don’t understand. Why blueberries are so freaking expensive. Why we had to learn how to play Hot Cross Buns on the recorder. Why the rules of the cricket are so absurd. Actually I just googled cricket to see if I could understand it any better but accidentally fell into a coma. Pippa Middleton pretty much sums up my understanding of the game – “A batsman goes out and is then in until he gets out. This goes on until the last batsman is out, apart from one who is still in and therefore not out.” I hate the cricket. Anyway moving on. Why French women don’t get fat. Why anyone bothers to watch Masterchef Australia anymore. Why someone would give Whoopie Pies such a ridiculous name.

It might be winter here in Sydney, but there’s plenty of blue sky and sunshine which means certain people* are choosing to wear shorts and singlets and thongs. It’s a trap because it may look lovely and warm but it’s actually only 10 degrees which according to Australians is bloody freezing cold (personally, anything under 20 degrees feels sub-arctic). Of course, just because it’s cold doesn’t mean the rays of sunlight are any less capable of roasting you whole if you’re not careful.

Recently I somehow managed to convince my charming friend Nic to order deep fried calamari coated in salted egg yolk, mostly out of curiosity on my part and also because I love any damn thing made with egg yolks. I must thank him for not outright rejecting that rather unusual choice, but anyway the risk paid off – they were strangely morish, which shouldn’t have been a surprise given my love for calamari, egg yolks, and deep frying, but they seriously looked like giant luminously orange cheese Twisties. I would totally eat a plateful again now, proving that sometimes the freakiest looking things are sometimes the most delicious. I must admit that my willingness to eat interesting things is probably mostly due to being Asian. Or possibly I’m always just hungry enough to eat anything.

I have been asked how to cook something impressive and delicious but less time intensive than my usual Start-This-Recipe-The-Night-Before recipes. So here it is – the fastest thing I can cook (from scratch) is Moules Marinieres, which seriously takes less than 10 minutes in total including the prep work and cooking. However any cooking time saved is spent looking for parking at the Sydney Fish Markets in order to get the mussels. You can get decent mussels at most local fish shops but the Fish Markets have literally every kind of seafood imaginable and it’s all super fresh out of the sea. And also I like to browse and touch and poke and smell the goods as though I’m shopping for a new YSL bag.

Two words which make me think of my childhood: condensed milk. We always had a can of it in a green plastic container on our kitchen counter, mostly for making a Vietnamese coffee (best coffee in the world, btw). This might also be the reason that I’m only 5’3”. Or genetics, whatever. I’ll always remember our old bitch of an electric can opener that would leave the edge of the can sharper than a samurai sword, so getting into that condensed milk carried a sense of danger as well. None of this easy safe pull-ring business that they have nowadays. No wonder kids these days are so soft – I blame ring-pull cans. And also the internet, because they’ll never feel the pain of having to trek all the way to the library to photocopy pages out of encyclopedias for school projects.

I never intentionally bake anything healthy. If I do make something that happens to lack a shitload of butter, rest assured it was entirely accidental. Not that this recipe is classified as healthy, but instead of butter it uses glorious coconut milk. Even the ganache is made with coconut milk instead of cream. And let me tell you, it’s absolutely incredible. So rich, fudgy and m-o-i-s-t (I’m spelling out that word because it gives me the creeps).

Blondies are much less commercially successful, popular or attractive than those famewhore attention-seeking brownies that everyone always talks about. And although you’re instantly attracted to the glamorously rich glossiness of brownies, sometimes they’re just a little too much, too high-maintenance, too over-the-top. Blondies seem more relaxed, fun and down-to-earth, and are much less likely to make you feel like vomiting after an extended encounter.*

*This paragraph also works if you substitute Khloe Kardashian for blondies and Kim Kardashian for brownies.

During a very short era that we shall call the Great Pickling, Mr D bought a large number of mason jars in anticipation of pickling everything that he could lay his hands on after watching one too many episodes of Doomsday Preppers. He had already experienced the flush of success with his highly acclaimed tomato chutney made with home-grown tomatoes, and decided his next project was to pickle a bushel of my dad’s blow-your-socks-off hot jalapenos. To give you an indication of how hot they were, being in the same room as those jalapenos and breathing the same air as them burned my lungs.

I decided to make doughnuts because I actually just wanted some chocolate crème patissière, but you cannot morally make that on its own unless you’re also one of those people who buys whipped cream in a can to squirt directly in your mouth. Therefore chocolate filled doughnuts seemed like a good idea. Don’t even think about making baked doughnuts or wondering how to make these doughnuts healthier, you need to commit to this one hundred percent and not feel any embarrassment or shame about the fact that you’re about to fry up lumps of dough.

Whenever anyone asks me to make a cake for them, I have a little private panic attack. I’m like an iceberg, all cool and icy calm on top but under the surface I’m a giant mass of frozen anxiety. I am a cake perfectionist. I want the cake to be the most amazing cake ever in the history of the world which is putting myself under some unnecessary pressure and the inevitable failure to live up to the impossible standards I have set. Especially when there’s a timeframe with which make the cake, the fact that it has to hold up for a length of time and also withstand the judgement of friends and random people. Random people are the scariest of them all.

The first time I ever tasted cheesecake was KFC cheesecake. I’m showing my age because many moons ago, before some Gen Y marketing person decided the name had too many syllables to remember, KFC was always referred by its full name, Kentucky Fried Chicken. If you didn’t know this then you were probably born in the 90’s and have never bought a cassingle in your entire life. You might not have also known that KFC also used to have lemon cheesecake, chocolate mousse, buttery corn cobs and tangy bean salad on their menu because they have now been replaced with that hideous popcorn chicken crap and crispy strips bullshit. But I remember the lemon cheesecake in its little single serve tub being delightful, so vividly yellow and probably made entirely from synthetic ingredients. I then graduated to cheesecakes from The Cheesecake Shop, a tacky yet glorious place where if you wanted only half a cheesecake they would cut a whole cake in half, foil tin and all (yes they came in foil tins). This story is making me sound like I grew up in a trailer park but I assure you I had a totally decent upbringing.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those that love a warm bun stuffed with hot meat – yeah don’t think that I didn’t see you smirk at the sexual innuendo – and those who are lying. Non-meat eaters, I know you have your alternatives filled with tofu that I’m maybe 40% convinced are just as delicious, but this is not about you. It’s about me, steamed buns, and roast pork. A culinary threesome. Hawt.

I have something of extreme life or death importance to ask of you. It’s about pies. We all need to band together and make Pies the new Macarons which were the new Cupcakes which were the new Donuts which were the new Brownies. Apparently the prediction is that Marshmallows are going to be the next big thing but I’m not down with that shit. Marshmallows belong in rocky road or toasted on the end of dirty sticks in a campfire, not as an actual dessert for God’s sake. I mean really, what kind of cruel joke is this? We need to nip this in the bud before some poor hapless moron opens a marshmallow shop thinking that he’ll soon retire in the Bahamas with the imaginary wealth made from his stupid marshmallows.

Can anyone tell me why it’s creepy to eat a banana and make eye contact with someone at the same time? I mean I know why, but why only bananas? I feel so sorry for bananas and their porno reputation when there are clearly other foods out there that are more deserved of the title. I’m looking at you, Sausages.

It’s not unreasonable to expect a cake that looks delicious to actually taste delicious, is it? The other day I had some cake that looked positively amazing and promised me all kinds of happiness in my mouth, but it was ….meh. I ate the whole slice even though it was strangely textured and tasteless, and with each bite I’d look at it with growing disdain and annoyance, like it was Kanye West. It was the Kanye West of cake.

Coming up with blog post titles is hard. I like to know what I’m in for into when I click on a link, so ambiguous titles really annoy me because I feel cheated when it turns out to be not what was expected and that’s minutes of my life I’ll never get back which could have been spent looking at something amazing and life changing (says the girl who needs to read all those trashy articles on dailymail.co.uk even when they’re about British celebrities she’s never heard of). Anyway whatever my internet time is precious goddammit. But how much detail is too much detail for a title? I feel like I’m trying to sell you goods on eBay or something.

But the only thing that makes me happier than stuffing an unladylike fistful of KFC chips into my face is seeing the re-birth of the Mistress Deliciousness blog. And what better way to usher in this exciting news than to eat an ungodly amount of fried chicken.

I realise that 7 months is a long time to disappear, but I do have some good reasons, mostly relating to the fact that my blog got hacked and those assholes somehow deleted all the content and noooo, I hadn’t properly backed it up having obviously learned nothing from that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie’s laptop died and she wrapped it in a pashmina and took it to the repair shop but her work couldn’t be saved.

Anyway. I lost the will to continue after that devastating news but I believe it has now been a sufficient period of mourning (ok, it might have been laziness) and I’m ready to share my ramblings and adventures again. YAY.

p.s I will repost any old blog posts I can find because people have asked me for some of those recipes. Sorry I can’t remember who they were or the recipes asked for; a great chunk of my memory space is now instead devoted to images of Kim Kardashian’s maternity wear and stuff I want to buy on Netaporter.com.